December 24, 2015: Get the final version of Infra Apogee here. Includes 3 new maps, bringing the total up to 20.

From December 23, 2014:Merry Christmas motherfuckers. After a year and a half away from mapping, I opened Weland again sometime this summer (why) and got to work on a handful of multiplayer levels. My goal was to put out something new before the end of the year. Hooray for procrastination. The initial release of Infra Apogee features five brand new maps all produced within the last half of 2014.

I decided it was time to try something a little different with my third map pack and, getting with the times, made use of ShapeFusion to generate shapes patches of Marathon 1 and Marathon 2 textures. As such, several levels feature either M1 or M2 texture sets. It was a challenge using those texture sets after having grown so acquainted with Infinity textures, but I'm pretty pleased with the result as of now, and plan to expand (at least a little bit) on this pack. The goal was to make M1- and M2-themed maps more accessible to the majority of online players, as everyone plays on Infinity for the most part.

As always, comments and feedback are always appreciated. And PLEASE let me know if you find any bugs -- I'm really trying to make this a bug-free pack. Here are some sample screenshots for your viewing pleasure:

Lh'owon Down Low --A map nestled deep in the bowels of an active Lh'owon volcano. The layout is fairly spread out, so this one's good for larger games. KOTH is recommended as well.

Captain Confidence --Travel back 20 years and board the luxurious moon-ship UESC Marathon one last time!

Perverse Infection --An ancient S'pht structure nestled into the side of a massive cliff. KOTH is also recommended here - large hill, fun times, etc, etc.

What I like about most of these is that there is tons of open space. Both in terms of height but also horizontal distance. Lots of big cavernous spaces. That has its problems with the weapon set and overall gameplay, of course, but it's a nice change of pace from other "recent" maps that are tending to become more crowded.

Captain Confidence looks great. That's easily my favorite of the bunch. It's like a more tightly-wound version of La Cosa Nostra. Initiation and Lh'owon Down Low are masterful examples of height as some feature, with tons of different regions at different elevations that line up nicely with each other to allow that nice tactical interplay between them.

One thing that I wonder though -- there are so many ways to go up and down between floors, with lifts and stairs and teleporters, that I wonder if the map would be more interesting if there were fewer routes. Right now I fear that the gameplay is going to be kinda like $lave's most recent maps, where the problem was that once you lose visual sight of a player you have no idea where they are. I think being able to pursue and predict player movement without seeing them is important.

RyokoTK wrote:One thing that I wonder though -- there are so many ways to go up and down between floors, with lifts and stairs and teleporters, that I wonder if the map would be more interesting if there were fewer routes. Right now I fear that the gameplay is going to be kinda like $lave's most recent maps, where the problem was that once you lose visual sight of a player you have no idea where they are.

Thanks for the feedback! I plan on making a handful of smaller maps sometime in the future for the next update, and I'll try to keep this in mind. Being able to predict player movement is important, especially in duels. We'll see what happens. Glad you liked the M1 map, as well. I wasn't quite sure how people would react to that one, but so far here and on the metaserver feedback has been positive.

I have a feeling these are some of the best maps I'll never look at. Good job.

Ah that silver tongue hasn't lost its edge! Glad to see you're still fighting the good fight, Wrk.

This update adds three new maps, bringing the total up to eight. These new maps are all pretty small and fast-paced; a contrast to the larger, spread-out maps of the first edition. Hopefully that will help diversify the pack so it has something to offer for any number of players.

The existing maps have all been revised and improved in some way, though a fair amount of the changes are probably unnoticeable to the regular player. The biggest alterations are the inclusion of SMGs on Captain Confidence, the general re-clustering of ammo on most maps (so there aren't as many goddamn green flashes), and several architectural modifications on Captain Confidence and Perverse Infection. Perverse also features better spawn points. And if you absolutely hate bouncy-walls, I'm pretty sure I've eliminated almost all of them. Anyways! Take a look at the new additions:

At the Gates of Dawn - A small, abandoned hangar sits in the ruin of the Lh'owon marshes. There's lots of little tricks on this map, and it's pretty fast-paced and enjoyable with 3-4 players. I imagine King of the Hill would be fun on this one as well.Solastalgia - My second stab at an M1 map. I think I picked a better texture set for this one; it has the look and feel of an M1 map. Definitely 3 players max, and works great as a dueling map.Psychadelica - Some trippy-ass shit. Great dueling map with lots of dark and bright places -- always stay on alert.If you have the time or inclination, PLEASE rate Infra Apogee on Simplici7y. Enjoy!

The third edition of Infra Apogee is up on Simplici7y; get it here!This is admittedly a more eccentric update as I've begun experimenting with some minor lua/mml, which is something I haven't done before. "Tabula Rasa" features a rain precipitation lua, "New Pacific" uses MML to mimic the green goo from M1, and "Crash Map" features custom textures (another first for me). Special thanks to $lave for his work on these scripts/textures, and thanks to Treellama for help on some MML as well.

These maps are all on the larger end in terms of size, as opposed to the last update which added small and extra small maps. As well, this update includes significant changes to most of the existing maps. A more detailed changelog can be found in the read me.

Comments/suggestions/reviews are always welcome, though I know I probably won't get any from here. Check out the screenshots below, and enjoy!

Tabula Rasa -- A s'pht stronghold slowly flooding from the first rain in centuries. This is my first map to make use of lua/mml. $lave did a great job getting the rain to look appropriate here - and I must give Treellama credit for his precipitation lua. This is a larger map intended for around 5-7 players. The hill is the entire first floor of the main structure.

Crash Map -- A downed Jjaro dropship has just crash-landed on one of Lh'owon's desolate moons. I've wanted to do this map for years -- even when I was making Caustic Dystopia. I'm very happy with the results here, especially $lave's wonderful custom textures. This is the largest map in the pack and works well with anywhere from 5-8 players. KOTH is recommended, too.

New Pacific -- The third M1-themed map in IA, "New Pacific" turned out better than I predicted considering M1 pfhor textures are a bitch to use. This map has more of an arena feel to it and is good with anywhere from 4-6 players. Bonus points if you listen to "New Pacific" while playing "New Pacific".

The Cylindrical -- A geothermal (!!!) energy plant perched on the side of a Lh'owon mountain. This one has lots of heights and ledges and is sort of a better version of "Initiation" in my mind. Good with anywhere from 3 to 5 players.

Merry Christmas again motherfuckers. The final edition of my last mappack is on Simplici7y and has 20 maps. This update adds three new maps and does all the usual shit with the older maps. Thanks to those of you who've helped test these over the last year and a half; I am pretty satisfied with the results of this experiment.

Here's a rundown of the last three maps:

The Emperor of Finite Space -- Not quite a remake of my old map "King of Infinite Space", but is fairly similar in layout and has a fancy bridge dividing it in half. This map is great for small games and plays fairly quickly. The raised hill in particular provides an interesting dynamic.

Objective Permanence -- A decently vertical M1 map. This one turned out smaller than I anticipated, but is still fun with 3 or so players.

Tempus Fugit -- The last map made for Infra Apogee. This is also by far the tallest and (fun fact, Ryoko) is also taller than any of the Tallmaps (ball's in your court). This map is extremely vertical, but each battlefield is large enough to have protracted battles on. Sniping is tricky, but possible, and ambushing is easy and effective. Despite being so large, this map is fun with any number of people, and KOTH is especially interesting.

Who knows, maybe I want to see an Official Tallmap Trilogy®! Or maybe I want to see Strike the Earth finally released, god dammit.

you had me at heights as some feature, downloaded.

Admittedly, Infra Apogee uses heights more drastically than my other two packs. Seems to help keep the maps contained and prevent them from becoming too spread-out, which was a problem I ran into often before.

Mini Update: 2.0.0 -- I'm pulling a Brett Favre and coming out of retirement to post this quick update to the fifth edition, which fixes a few bouncy walls/line errors and a faulty platform, and makes several inaccessible places actually non-accessible. I suggest everyone download this new version since, while not apparent, these bugs definitely disrupted the flow in some way. And why did I just add an extra .0? Because it's the same as a goddamned .1 and you know it so who cares. Get it here.

RyokoTK wrote:Yeah I realized a couple days ago that I'm still sitting on like three levels I haven't released. We'll see about that happening.

NOICE. I hope your Tallest Map isn't done for a few days so IA doesn't get bumped down immediately like it always does D: